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1365 Prior of Students

As soon as he had qualified as a graduate
and Doctor of Divinity Adam was appointed as prior of students for Gloucester College. This meant that he would have a
salary that allowed him to stay in Oxford
and further his studies, but in return he had to take charge of the spiritual
and moral welfare of the other monk students. The following text from the
Benedictine rule book outlines the thinking behind the role of the Prior:

Unbridled freedom tends frequently to break
out into errant practises when it is not controlled by a superior leading to
deviation from the proper path and involvement in forbidden activities. So the
discretion that comes from the church specifically provides that students of
our order, whilst they are away from their monasteries, should not be sent out
with complete freedom and should not break out into forbidden things and that
one of the students should be appointed Prior of Students through whose efforts
the others should be properly controlled in their behaviour. For as we have
learnt from various rumours, those priors who in former times had
responsibility for Oxford students in the execution of the power which had been
given to them through the supreme pontiff, when it came to the proper control
of these students over whom they had jurisdiction, turned out to be too
negligent (remiss). To avoid this same thing happening in later times when the
local power has been removed, we enjoin that those who in future times will
hold the office of prior should diligently keep an eye on the conduct of those
students and that those things in the Benedictine Constitution in the book
concerning the Pensions of Students containing two chapters “Let them prey” and “Let them provide” and that those provisions of
these chapters concerning the priors themselves and students, that the priors
should observe those principles concerning themselves and as regards other
students, they should ensure that the principles are observed without exception
by those students at all future times.

From the Benedictine Statutes of
1363 transcribed by William Pantin in The English Black Monks Vol II from
Durham MS B IV 26